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Comment by more_corn | Hacker News Reader

It does. Your car is on a public street. You have no expectation of privacy on a public street. Also the law explicitly addresses tint. You cannot tint the windshield and front windows past a certain poknt.

Your home is private . You have an expectation of privacy there.

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Of course there are limited expectations of privacy in a vehicle. The glovebox, trunk, a box in the back seat, a duffel bag in the front seat, anything concealing the contents has an expectation of privacy. And no, you don't just automatically lose your 4th amendment rights just because you're on a public street.

Tinting laws are for motor safety, not for the surveillance state. Notably, limousines are fully tinted in the rear as well as most passenger buses. And of course, cargo vans etc are fully enclosed.

No, it's not accurate that tinting laws are exclusively for driver safety.

This isn't accurate. You do have some enforceable expectations of privacy in a motor vehicle parked on a public street --- the trunk, the contents of the glove box, the contents of closed containers in plain view in the passenger's compartment. What you don't get is privacy for any of the parts of the car that would ordinarily be in plain view to someone outside the car.

What about an RV? In a forest service campground?

> Your home is private . You have an expectation of privacy there.

Yeah, but if you put your illegal drugs and illegal guns right there in the window where everyone can see them - be that on the dashboard of your car or on your front room windowsill - you can't really say they were "private", can you?

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